States of Play

American fiction is replete with books which portray sport as central to life and a test of character. The current big American novel, Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, revolves around the game of baseball. It is also a compelling story about rites of passage, friendship, dreams and disappointments. Anthony Quinn’s very English novel, Half the Human Race, imagines a romance between a cricketer and a suffragette. Their mutual attraction and conflicts are ways of exploring old values and the challenges of modernity. In this Olympic year, they discuss whether sport in fiction can illuminate the human condition with Ed Smith, former international cricketer and author of What Sport Tells Us About Life and Luck.